A ground penetrating radar antenna for ESA's ExoMars 2020 rover being pre-cleaned in an ultra-cleanroom environment in preparation for its sterilisation process, in an effort to prevent terrestrial microbes coming along for the ride to the red planet.

The 14th Astrobiology Graduate Conference (AbGradCon) was successfully held from June 4-7, 2018 at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, Georgia, with 96 participants presenting 72 posters and 23 oral presentations.

In a paper published Wednesday (June 13) in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Southern Queensland have identified more than 100 giant planets that potentially host moons capable of supporting life.

The spectrum of an exoplanet reveals the physical, chemical, and biological processes that have shaped its history and govern its future. However, observations of exoplanet spectra are complicated by the overwhelming glare of their host stars.

Last year, scientists with NASA's Dawn mission announced the detection of organic material -- carbon-based compounds that are necessary components for life -- exposed in patches on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres.

Plants are quicker to react and more sensitive than you might think - they can detect light changes in a fraction of a second and can bend towards light sources within minutes - and they respond equally fast to gravity.

Arguably, the greatest fueler of life on our planet is photosynthesis, but understanding its labyrinthine chemistry, powered by sunlight, is challenging. Researchers recently illuminated some new steps inside the molecular factory that makes the oxygen we breathe.

The availability of bioessential elements for "life as we know it", such as phosphorus (P) or possibly molybdenum (Mo), is expected to restrict the biological productivity of extraterrestrial biospheres.

Curiosity has discovered new "tough" organic molecules in three-billion-year-old sedimentary rocks on Mars, increasing the chances that the record of habitability and potential life could have been preserved on the Red Planet, despite extremely harsh conditions on the surface that can easily break down organic molecules.